Determiners For The Use Of Strategic Managerial Accounting Practices: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This study aims at identifying the intensity in the use of Strategic Managerial Accounting (SMA) practices and the influence of some of the main contingency variables (company’s strategy and size) explaining the use of such practices.  The SMA practices applied in the study were based on those identified by Cadez and Guilding (2008), the strategic variables were represented by three different conceptual approaches (MILES; SNOW, 1978; PORTER, 1986; GUPTA; GOVINDARAJAN, 1984) and the company’s size rating was based on its annual gross profit, applied by BNDES (2009). The survey was made from a population of twenty-seven companies in the professional education sector, with Brazil-wide relevance, acting within the same governance, but with different strategies, sizes and performances. The methodology was the information poll by means of a questionnaire sent to the responsible for the planning or accounting areas. The results indicate that “integrate performance measurement” and “target costing” represents SMA practices widely applied, followed by “benchmarking”, “strategic pricing”, “strategic costing” and “brand assessment and monitoring”. An adoption under the average was noticed for some practices related to costs and customers. All SMA practices had high perception level as to the relevance of their application. In order to check the relation of SMA practices with the contingent variables, an ordered probit applied. It was found that the strategic approaches (standard, mission and positioning) seem to perform a contingent role in the SMA practices application, which was evidenced as well for the “company’s size” variable.